Wilderness wolf gunning inquiry shot down

An inquiry into using aircraft to shoot wolves in federally designated wilderness in the Wind River Range fizzled after a meeting between the Bridger-Teton National Forest, cattle producers and elected officials. Bridger-Teton Supervisor Tricia O’Connor told parties who approached the forest about aerially gunning cattle-killing wolves in the Bridger Wilderness that she was “willing to discuss” and “talk it through” in a late 2018 email. Stakeholders later met in person to discuss further, but more than a year and a half later there is no proposal on the table. It’s a “big deal” to go after native wildlife in wilderness, a highly protected class of federal land where natural processes are prioritized, Bridger-Teton Pinedale District Ranger Rob Hoelscher told the News&Guide. “We don’t allow gunning of anything in the wilderness without going through a [minimum requirements analysis] and a [National Environmental Policy Act] process,” Hoelscher said. “This came up and we discussed it a little bit, but we haven’t allowed it and we don’t plan to.” Although not a public conversation, the idea of authorizing federal employees to capture and lethally target wolves using a helicopter in the Bridger Wilderness came to light through a Freedom of Information Act request. The advocacy group Western Watersheds Project filed a FOIA request that turned up the summer 2018 email thread, which was then provided to the News&Guide. Parties to the email correspondence included Hoelscher, forest wildlife biologist Randy Griebel, Sublette County cattle rancher and state House Rep. Albert Sommers, Wyoming Wildlife Services Director Mike Foster, Sublette County Predator Board member and woolgrower Cat Urbigkit and cattle ranchers Joel and Cotton Bousman. The discourse primarily concerned scheduling an in-person meeting. Sommers told the News&Guide that the discussion was spurred by wolves chronically killing cattle on summer grazing allotments in the southern Winds. That part of the Wind River Range is outside of the wolf “trophy game area” and is in the “predator zone,” an area where wolves can be killed without permit or limit and where, at the time, there weren’t compensation programs to reimburse ranchers for their losses. “I didn’t know what the rules were, as far as what could be done under the Wilderness Act, and what couldn’t be,” Sommers said. “So that was basically what I was asking.” “I found out you can’t really do it, so that’s that,” Sommers said. “That conversation just died there.”...MORE